


take me away

by raffinit



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-06 16:37:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8760718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raffinit/pseuds/raffinit
Summary: Marlene always told her she looked so much like her mother.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> if you haven't seen the new TLOU Part II trailer then holy wow you fucking should because wow 
> 
> this was sitting in my old docs for a while and WHAT PERFECT TIMING AMIRITE

 

"Say Joel, what's your middle name?"

 

"What's that gotta do with anythin'?"

 

_"Just wondering, 's all. I never had one. Mary-Louise has like three names."_

_"...my middle name's Alexander. Go ahead and laugh all y'want. Tess wouldn't let a day go by without gigglin' some."_

_"...what was Tess's middle name?"_

_"....Annabelle, believe it or not."_

 

\--------

 

All she knows is pain.

She divorces herself from it, shuts her mind away where she knows she must not allow her emotions to reach. She  _ can’t _ ; there can’t be feelings here, even if there are, they must be locked away. 

The baby is tiny, she knows it (though it certainly doesn’t feel tiny), and Marlene says, “you have a baby girl,” but what she really means is to say “the baby is a girl.”  _ Not mine.  _

But Marlene lays the tiny squalling thing on her chest for just a moment, and the baby blinks at her, a small squishy face with bright inquisitive eyes. The tiny fingers wrap around her index finger, a tiny hand. Tess wants to say hello. Her fingers shake, drift over the baby’s forehead; she has a full head of hair, little thing, and the baby makes a snuffling sound. 

(She wants to nurse the baby, hold her close, wants to bundle her in warm blankets and kiss the top of her little head, wants to squish her gently, listen to the tiny baby sounds she makes.)

“Take her,” Tess chokes, squeezing her eyes shut. 

“But - “

“Take her.”

She feels the small warm weight lifted from her chest. The fingers around her own are gone. 

"Name her, at least," Marlene implores her. Tess shakes her head.  _A name would mean attachment, and no attachments are allowed here_. "I've gotta tell her something, Tess."

She bites down hard on her lip, and hopes she can bleed herself enough to wash away the guilt. "E-Ellie," she breathes, eyes hard on the dusty window. "Her name is Ellie. Tell her my name was Anna. I died after giving birth."

Dying, as she has learned, has always been a relative thing. 

The baby wriggles in Marlene's hold, small quiet whimpers emanating from the little swaddle of blankets. 

First whimpering, then crying.

She presses her face into the pillow. Hears Marlene shushing the baby girl gently, cooing, but the baby cries even louder, wails. Tess hears a door opening, then shutting. The crying is muffled, then fades entirely.

There is only silence.

\------

 

She shuts the door of the apartment and he looks up, expecting drinks, bottles, a snappy retort, a witty opener, the usual.

Why wouldn’t it be the usual?

But Tess looks sad. She looks tired, and suddenly rather young but lined, her eyes dull and red, her face ashen. She shut the door so quietly; no slam. 

She looks cold.

He slips his arm around her shoulders -  _ c’mon, let’s get you warmed up  _ \- and guides her to the bed in the other room; he lies her there gently, as careful as can be, and curls around her, tucks every blanket and his shirt over her shoulders.

(He doesn’t ask, and she does not tell him. It’s easier if he doesn’t know.)

 


	2. if, and then what?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a very big WHAT-IF scenario; what if Ellie really was theirs? and what if Tess had to decide if there really would be more for her baby girl in a military barrack than with a pair of shitty smuggler bandits?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was written in like 2013 or 2014 so you can't blame me for like the shitty writing. i mean you can but like i really dgaf so

“Push, Tess, push -.”

It feels like being shot. Ten times worse, she thinks, than the burning metal lodging itself in her flesh, the gunpowder stench and burnt skin; more, than leaving. But she doesn’t scream, doesn’t moan and wail and whine or beg for drugs. She bears down, and she pushes. Sucks in deep, shaking breaths and sinks her nails into the sheets as she pushes, pushes until her eyes light with stars and her ears ring, but at last, there is a final, solid pull, and she collapses back against the pillows, strangely hollow.

Something cool and damp dabs against her cheeks, her forehead. She doesn’t realize she’s crying. There are quiet, snuffling whimpers in the room somewhere, and then a tinny wail. It feels like she’s been in the bottle. 

“What is it?” she asks. The room weaves in and out of her mind, her eyes can barely focus on the blurry figure of someone moving around the bed; the small bundle that is placed on her chest. She reaches, instinctive, to bolster this little being’s presence on her body, the small, weak little limbs that flail against the towel, and the watery, almost alien little cries. “‘s it a boy?”

Marlene brushes her hair back for her, lifts it off her neck to keep her cool. “It’s a girl,” her warm, dulcet voice doesn’t offer much to her; Tess wishes it was deeper, gruffer, and the hands that touched her were bigger, rougher, but so, so gentle. “It’s a little baby girl.”

Tess blinks away the tears, the exhaustion that sags in her shoulders, and at last she can see the little baby on her chest, cradled against her as its tiny tiny hands reach and cling to the fabric of her shirt - Joel’s shirt. It whimpers, scrunches its little nose, but there is some kind of recognition there, almost as if it recognizes her warmth, her presence. 

“H-hi,” she breathes, finally, and the baby’s brows arch at her voice, searching, and Tess feels her chest clench. 

She lets the baby latch onto her breast, lets it root around for her nipple until it settles down against her, sighs a deep, contented sigh as it nurses. As if it’s known her all its life, known that this is exactly where it was meant to be.

Tess feels the tremble in her fingertips, the twinge of agony. 

Marlene hovers by her bedside, patient, knowing. “You can always change your mind, Tess.” She brushes the baby’s hair back gently; barely an hour old and already such a lush head of hair. “She’s beautiful,” she says, smiling softly. “Looks just like you.”

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” Tess tells her, and her voice catches despite herself. She feels the heat of it coil in her chest, the weight of the baby and the milk in her breast, aching as she denies herself the instinct to pull the baby closer, holds her little body close and cuddle her infant daughter. “She’s better off without me.”

“Says who?” Marlene asks, and the sharpness of her voice has Tess bristling. It’s hard to think of Tess as intimidating, when she’s so weak and weary. 

She’s lying against pillows buffering her bony frame as she nurses a newborn. Tess has seen better days, she thinks. This pregnancy has taken a lot out of her. 

“You’re a capable woman. Joel -.”

“Joel can never know,” Tess hisses then, and the baby whimpers, her tiny fingers splay across her mother’s skin, clinging in whatever weak and small way she can. It’s enough to silence her mother; Tess bundles her back tighter in her wrap, wipes the milk off her chin. 

“Joel can never know,” she murmurs again, and her eyes are downcast and shamed; she stares into her daughter’s face, and feels nothing but a throbbing ache, beneath the shame and guilt of hiding her child from its father. “He’s just going to think I’m trying to - to replace Sarah. Give him another kid, maybe he’ll forget the other.”

She bundles the baby closer to her, feels the soft, gurgling breaths against her neck. “She deserves better than that.” Tess whispers, and the tears run hot down her cheeks. 

“You asked if it was a boy first. Did you want her to be?”

“He’s never had a son before,” Tess says, and wipes the tears from her face with the heel of her hand. “He’d give her a chance then.”

Marlene makes a sound, and Tess looks up to see her shaking her head, the frown on the woman’s face as she pulls a chair by her bedside and props herself there. “I am ashamed of you, Tess,” Marlene says, the disapproval is so thick in her words that Tess flinches as if she’s yelled. “To think you of all people would make Joel out to be so shallow -.”

“He’s not the shallow one,” she blurts. “I am. I’m the shitty one in all this.”

“And you’re punishing them for it, too,” Marlene tells her. The bitter pill is hard to swallow, but Tess can only feel the dull, numbing ache of her body, the hollow clenching of her chest. “You want to take away his baby girl from him - again. And you want this precious little girl, this life you brought into the world together, to grow up thinking about what happened to her parents? About why her Mama gave her away?”

Tess curls around the baby tight, her body shudders but she will not sob openly, no - she has shed enough tears. She cradles the little bundle in her elbow, tucks it close and keeps the little baby girl warm. It doesn’t occur to her that the baby should be named. Instead she memorizes the little face; the curve of her soft, chubby cheeks and the way she knows the baby already has Joel’s serious brow, but her face mostly.

She wonders if her eyes are green. 

“What if he leaves?” she whispers, and watches the baby make a deep, snuffling sigh. It is so tiny in its wrapping, she feels her heart ache again thinking about how small her baby is; how small she had been when she was pregnant. Has she given this baby enough? Does her milk warm the little girl and soothe her? Will she grow up strong and healthy, a rosy-cheeked cherub with her mama’s freckles and her daddy’s strong brow?

She imagines returning, this little life in tow, imagines having to endure the anger and confusion from the man who fathered this child, the rage that might boil over. It isn’t the fear of punishment, the sound of his thunderous voice shaking the apartment, it isn’t the fear of that he might even raise his hand to her, no, no - of course not. Joel would never. Joel is better than all that. Even though she would deserve it. 

No, Tess thinks. She is more afraid of the silence. The emptiness of the apartment. The absence. 

She is afraid of knowing that she had torn it all to pieces.

The baby wriggles, fusses again; Tess offers her breast, but the baby simply presses itself closer, settles down when it feels the warmth of her skin. Proximity and comfort, the baby has already imprinted on her, knows her as something safe, warm, loving. 

“What if your Daddy doesn’t want you, mm?” she whispers to the little thing; her thin, elegant fingers brush over her daughter’s cheek, over the delicate lashes. “How do you know he’ll even see me? He probably thinks I’m dead, Marlene. He’d sooner see me dead than know that I kept this from him.”

Marlene clears her throat, quietly. “Joel’s a good man, Tess. He can forgive this, if you’re willing to try too.” She smiles then, warm, surprisingly kind. “How could he not want such a precious baby girl? She’ll be the center of the universe to him.”

Tess tucks the baby close, buttons her right up in her shirt. The plaid in the color of soft, watered down green. The baby coos against her chest, almost smiles contentedly and nuzzles her skin. Tess bites down on her lip, just hard enough to keep herself from crying, even if her eyes well and blur, she’s so tired. 

“Will you - bring him here, to me? I don’t want - I can’t bring her out there. Not yet.” She looks away, can’t bring herself to look Marlene in the face. 

The woman is calm though, understanding. Tess wonders if she’s pulling a fast one on them. “Of course. I’ll have some of my guys bring him down.”

“Don’t jump him,” Tess warns her. “Just knock on the door and tell him, or he’ll break their kneecaps.”

“Duly noted.” Marlene smiles, wry now, and she offers Tess a warm squeeze on her shoulder. “Congratulations, Tess. She’s gorgeous.”

For the first time since the baby was laid in her arms, Tess finds herself smiling, shy almost, as she looks into her daughter’s face. When she’s alone with the baby, later in the night, curled around on her side and nursing, she whispers to her little girl about all the things she would give her, and all the things she remembers about her Daddy. 

“I hope he listens,” she whispers against the baby’s forehead, and her baby girl coos, touches her Mama’s face. “I hope he loves you as much as I do.”

 

\-------

 

He doesn’t know what he’s expecting when the knock comes. 

He doesn’t like to think he’s kept a hold of the hope that she would come back to him after almost eight months, feels like years to him. The whole damn place is just so cold now without her, so cold and empty, and she had always been so cold, even in the summertime; cold hands and feet pressed to his skin at night. 

It troubles him to think that he misses it. 

So he peeks through the hole, tries to wonder if he’s disappointed or surprised when he doesn’t see Tess, but instead a pair of nervous looking fellas - Fireflies. 

“The fuck you want?” he growls. Lately he’s been so mean, so temperamental, it scares off anyone even thinking of fucking with him - Joel just can’t give a fuck these days. It helps distract him from the fact that he very much gives a lot of fucks, he gives all his fucks about Tess, about where she is, but it’s safer for the rest of the world to think that he just wants to rip everyone’s heads off. 

The braver of the two shuffles around the doorway, jerks his head at the hallway behind them. “Marlene sent us,” he tells Joel, and they eye the way his shoulders stiffen and the man practically bristles. “She says ‘s about time you came by. Meet some familiar faces.”

His heart jolts in his chest - Tess? With the Fireflies? He sees red. “What the  _ fuck  _ did you do to her -” he’s practically foaming at the mouth as he pins the silent one against the door, grabs for his crowbar, but then there’s gun to his head, uncocked, but steady.

“Hey man,” the Firefly says again, his voice trembling. “We didn’t fuckin’ touch your girl. Marlene sent us to pick your ass up so you could come see her.”

Joel drops the man like a sack of bricks, and he glowers at them both like a dangerous, terrifying bear. “Take me to her.”

 

\------

 

He doesn’t know why he trusts these goons. They lead him to the south side of town; notorious Firefly hideouts - notorious only to the people of the underground, of course. Military’s up in arms about the little militia group lately. It sits in his stomach like an unnerving snake coiled and writhing to think about Tess here, where it was either soldiers or Fireflies that could get to her. 

Marlene is standing by a shipment of rations, leaning idly by as she grabs a blanket and an MRE from the stash, turns to him. “Joel.”

“Where the fuck is she?” he spits, but this is her turf; her boys that have their guns waiting to fire on him, he knows. It’s not like he would’ve been stupid enough to come to a gunshow alone, but he doesn’t fucking care about Marlene at the moment. 

“What’d you do to her?”

Marlene arches a brow, jerks her head to one of the buildings. “Come with me,” she says, and glances at his guns. “You promise me something first.”

He scowls at her, bares his teeth, but his hands are shaking, his heart pounding in his chest - his mind rushes with the images of what could possibly be the reason Tess had come to them, if she had gone to them willingly, and otherwise - “I swear to God, Marlene, if you’d laid a fuckin’  _ finger  _ on her -.”

The laugh almost startles him, it’s offending. “Almost nine months gone and she’s still got your sorry ass whipped.” Marlene shakes her head; how did they ever think of him being any other way? She grabs a water bottle, tosses it his way.

“Get your head out of your ass, Joel, come say hi to your partner.”

The room is marginally clean, neater than the rest of the space he’d seen as they walked through the halls. This was one of the medical wards, he realizes; his heart lurches into his throat when he sees her lying in one of the beds, just off by the window. “Tess -.”

“Slow now,” Marlene tells him firmly, eyeing the man. “She needs rest.”

He walks, almost numb as he watches her turn to him, blinking the sleep from her eyes. The confusion, the hazy way her eyes snap to him, and then the surprise and fear with the clarity, it aches in his chest to see that sharp gleam of fear in her eyes. But he’s so relieved, he doesn’t remember feeling so much weight lifting from his chest, the sheer relief as he all but stumbles to the bed, reaches for her.

“Tess -.”

Tess smiles at him, weakly, thinly; she’s trying her hardest not to cry, “h-hey Tex. I’m - sorry I left for so long -.” She turns over to him, shifts upright on the pillows with Marlene’s help, and Joel is so consumed with just staring at her, trying to make sense of the myriad of emotions whirling in his chest. And then she shifts the little bundle closer to her, tucks the baby into her elbow.

His eyes drift down to the baby. She watches the realization kick. 

“Is that - is - are you -?” he stares at her, bewildered, confused, almost. He stares down at the baby, so much pain, so much longing as he glimpses the soft head of hair; almost red, like Tess, and her nose and mouth, but his - 

He leans forward, moves so fast Tess has to flinch, but he’s crushing her to his chest then, shaking as he buries his face into her hair, his breath warm and damp as he weeps quietly. His shaking hands cling to her, she clings to him in return, their baby is nestled warm in between, and Marlene leaves them there, a crying mess of limbs and hair. 

“Goddamn it, Tess,” he gusts, and his frame shakes from the sobs as he pulls her even closer, buries his face into her neck and breathes her in. Still so sweet, so familiar, the smell of her on his pillow. “I thought I fuckin’ -” he swallows a breath, presses such a firm kiss to her lips it almost bruises. “Don’t you ever -  _ ever  _ do somethin’ like that again, y’hear me? Don’t you ever.” 

“Hey now,” she says, and she is weeping openly too, trembling as she dabs at the tears in her eyes and smiles at him so watery. “Don’t go swearin’ in front of the baby. She’s gonna pick up on it -.”

Joel gasps, and it hits him like a warm, delicate punch in the gut; “‘s a girl?” Tess rearranges the wrapping, reveals their little baby daughter, and he feels his chest warm down to his stomach. “Oh.” His hands are shaking, but he looks to Tess, permission, as he scoops the baby gently into his arms.

“She’s so little,” he says, and she is. She is a tiny thing, even more so in her Daddy’s arms; a small squishy loaf with long limbs and chubby cheeks, and a cute button nose she wrinkles up at him as she yawns. “Hey now.” The low rumble of his voice jolts her, she flails her arms at him, eyebrows in her hairline as she searches for his voice again. “Hi, baby girl. Hi - hi, sweetheart.”

The baby gurgles at him, yawns and snuggles down deeper into her wrap, dozes contentedly. 

He turns to Tess, something between awe and a warm, familiar joy in his face. “Y’got a name for her yet?”

“No. I haven’t - thought of one that suited her,” Tess says, and he comes into bed with her, wraps around her with their baby in his arms. She leans into his shoulder, feels her throat welling with a thousand lifetimes worth of shame, guilt, relief, melancholy; she breathes him in, and he smells exactly as she remembers. 

Home. 

“I’m sorry,” she breathes, and he looks down at her confused and disgruntled,  _ what’re you goin’ on about -  _ “I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you -.”

“Tess, c’mon now,” he says, and kisses her gently, so delicately, as if he might break her, and he kisses the tears from her face, the soft tickle of his beard on her skin reminds her of the nights she’d spent nestled in his scruff. “Y’scared the hell out of me, you can bet on that, but I - I figure I could see where you were comin’ from.”

He bounces the baby gently, slips his free hand over Tess’, and their fingers weave as they always do. “Just promise me you’re never gonna - do somethin’ like that again. Please?” He pulls them both close, and Tess feels her heart ache at the vulnerable murmur. “Y’gonna put me in my grave early.”

Tess presses her lips to his cheek, and lingers there before she rests her head on his chest comfortably. “I can’t leave you now, old man. You knocked me up.” He chortles, and Tess feels a strange warmth filling her body, spreading over her fingertips.

“You think about names? What were the ones you were thinkin’ about?”

“Hmmm. I thought of Hailey first. She doesn’t look like a Hailey.”

Joel murmurs his agreement, squeezes the baby a little, and she makes a soft burbling sound. “Looks more like an Ava to me.”

“I like Ella. Like Fitzgerald. Y’know,  _ Fever _ ?” She hums the tune, or at least, she tries, and Joel chuckles. 

“Ella, huh? Ella Miller.” It puts a rushing sensation in their chests to hear the name. “Ella Jean Miller.”

Tess burrows her face into his chest, smiling wryly. “Such a Southern name.”

“Fittin’,” he says, and drapes the baby over his chest. She snuggles into his warmth, hunkers down and dozes there peacefully. “Lil’ Ellie girl. Tiny loaf o’bread.” She yawns at them, blinks a moment to stare up rather derpily at her father, and then flops her head down into his shirt, nuzzling it. 

“‘s a Daddy’s girl already,” Tess says, and they link hands over her small back and share a quiet kiss. “I love you,” she murmurs into his lips. 

He squeezes her fingers in his, warm, roughened around the edges, but ever loving, faithful. “I love you too.” 

“...if you ever leave me again, woman, I’m gonna need to chain you to the bed.”

Her laugh is melodic and sweet, and he tastes it like honey on his tongue.


	3. the hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you thought it was over

She takes her gun, his shirt, and a couple extra ration cards to pay her way.

It feels dirty and secretive and covert, and of course it is, but Marlene at least listens to the situation. What would she have done, anyways? Tess thinks about it every night, her arm laid over the curve of her belly; gone back into the bedroom, curled up beside him, waited for him to wake up and greeted him with it like it was some kind of joyous news?

The months pass into a rainy September, the first true Indian summer she remembers since the outbreak - unseasonably warm, and being nine months pregnant in this weather is more than a little exhausting. It’s a good thing her movement is rather limited at this point, and so she stays inside the coolness of Marlene’s apartment, drawing with charcoal bits on old pieces of newspaper by the sunlight of an open windowpane. So many times Marlene has told her that Joel hasn’t come to look for her here; with a sad sigh that says he must have given up, but Tess doesn’t know how much she believes that. Joel must wonder.

(Doesn’t he?)

She doesn’t know. She tries her best not to think about it. What good is it to spend nights crying when she could be spending them sleeping?

She mentioned it when she first arrived, but now that she’s so close to due (mustn’t she be? shouldn’t the baby be out by now?  _ shit _ , she tells anyone who will listen to her), she brings it up again, idly, one evening. 

“Tess, you should think it over.”

“Thought it over, Marlene, don’t you think I’ve thought about it?” she snaps. Everything makes her snappish nowadays; she thinks she has cabin fever. Tess is not designed to sit still. She draws the strange dreams she has (the ones that don’t involve Joel), and today on a crumbling newspaper with a dusty piece of charcoal she is sketching a city pathway and a test booklet for an exam she has to take. 

“It’s your baby,” Marlene says, and something in the softness of the word  _ baby, baaaaby,  _ boils her blood. 

“This baby was unplanned,” she says, vitriol in her voice, and she doesn’t know at whom but she suspects it’s directed at herself. “I didn’t want this, Marlene, you think I want to bring a child into this fucked up world? You think I want to try to raise a kid and explain that there’s no food tonight?”

Marlene is silent; she chews her lip, regards Tess almost stonily but not without emotion.

“Or even better - how would I tell this baby that I’ve killed? How would I explain that?  _ See, in order to survive in the shitty dog-eat-dog universe we live in, mommy has to shoot people and bribe people or else they’ll shoot her and kill you! _ ” Her voice is uncomfortably shrill, and she takes a moment to breathe. The baby is kicking, feels like it’s rolling, and she feels a little sick. The selfishness in her words is unspoken -  _ do you think I want to go back to Joel like this, hey, guess what, we weren’t careful and you knocked me up and look, now you have a child, you have another child, look at me, I’m trying to replace the one that died! because that’s what it’ll be like, isn’t it, maybe I fucking am, maybe I’m a shitty enough fucking person that I would do that, not my fault that I fucking love him because I’m an asshole and nothing is ever my fault is it, but it doesn’t matter if I love him and it doesn’t matter what I’m trying to do, because I’m never going to be able to go back to him and even if I do, I’ll live with the knowledge that I gave away his baby, but at least I won’t have a kid that they’ll try to kill too… _

Self-hatred probably isn’t good for the baby. Self-loathing. All synonyms. It doesn’t matter. Tess begins to think that she herself isn’t good for the baby.

All the more reason.

The labor begins on the hottest day of the year, with cramps that couldn’t be anything but, seizing her whole body and making her crush the charcoal in her hand. Marlene gets one of the Fireflies’ medics, sworn to secrecy anyways about everything she does, probably, to come and help if they need it. 

This takes seventeen hours, and she is proud, because she does not shed a single tear despite the fact that the pain feels like a thousand burning matches set directly to her skin, her muscles seizing and clenching and moving of their own volition. She sweats and shakes and growls with every one that rips through her, and it all culminates in an absolutely unbearable pressure, and she can feel her bones grinding to make room, each against the other, a shrill creaking that only she seems to hear. 

and then  _ push _ , and  _ push _ , and it’s over.

She collapses against the pillows, shaking, sweating, feeling pale and limp and exhausted, her hands trembling, fingernail marks beading blood on her palms. She gathers her hair back behind her head, above her neck, with arms that feel weak and almost foreign to her. 

“Tess,” Marlene says, her voice soft; she dabs the sweat away with a cool rag. There are whimpering little cries, sobs, and Tess closes her eyes.

“I don’t want to see,” she says, in a voice that sounds nothing like her own. “Don’t wan’to.”

“But -”

“No,” she mumbles, letting her eyes crack open and closing them again to confirm. “Don’t.”

But she feels the small warm weight on her chest anyways, no towel barrier and skin reddish-pink and soft and almost raw with how fragile it feels. She doesn’t look,  _ don’t fucking look _ , she tries not to look and tries to remember what exactly her reasons are, she knows them so well. This world is no place for something this fragile. And if it must be, she won’t be able to go on, knowing she was the reason that fragile skin broke one day - she can’t protect a child. She can’t even protect herself. 

The baby is crying, wailing, but its voice is so quiet.

Tess blinks.

The baby kicks its legs. It is a girl. It has very small feet, even smaller hands, and it is squalling, wailing, screaming, but it is still rather ineffectually quiet (though it’s trying hard).

The baby,  _ she _ , flails her tiny arms.  _ Okay, okay, calm down.  _ Her brain is hazy as she puts the baby girl to her bare breast, feels the relief as she begins to suckle, and settles her gently in a cradling hold, close. Marlene is smiling.

“No,” Tess says, firmly.

She lets the baby nurse, and when the little thing detaches from her, she bundles it in the soft towel and nudges the wrapped baby gently towards Marlene.

“You  _ know  _ you’ll regret this.”

“I regret a lot of shit, Marlene.” Tess says, regarding her levelly with narrowed, exhausted eyes. “I regret a  _ lot  _ of shit in my life. And just because I do doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right decision.”

Marlene is holding the baby, who squalls again, screaming, flailing her arms out of the towel. Tess observes the scratches on her palms. She closes her eyes again.

“N - stop.”

She has no idea how this is working; she just wants this to stop, she wants to wake up next to Joel and for this all to have been a dream. This she regrets, doesn’t she? She regrets this - she is so unsteady on her feet, she is so tired, and the medic says  _ get back in bed _ , and Marlene says  _ get in bed, Tess,  _ and the world sways and the baby cries, and she collapses into the chair next to the bed, arms outstretched.

“Here. Here. It’s okay.”

She curls around the little bundle, and they cry together, except the sounds she makes are those she must have heard before; she sounds to herself like a dying animal, moaning quietly, shaking, holding the baby close, rocking her gently until the crying turns to whimpers, and she pulls the bundle to her chest. 

“G - can I - can I have something softer?” she chokes, slurring slightly. “Can you - g-get the, uh, the shirt, there’s a shirt on my b-bed I was wearing in the - in my r-oom, can you get it please get it?”

“I’ll get it, I’ll get it,” the medic comes back so quickly and Marlene’s arms are around her shoulders. Tess removes the towel and lets it fall to the floor, uses the soft flannel instead and it’s so nice and big that she can wrap her baby cozily in it. She wraps the sleeves around once, twice, and ties them snugly so that it’s almost swaddling, but the baby can wriggle and remove her arms. 

“It’s okay,” Marlene is telling her, soothingly, trying to help,

“No,” Tess sniffs, and holds her daughter so close, listens to the soft, snuffling noises she makes, the slight whimpers of fear, and draws her legs up on to the chair, curls herself around the little thing. “‘s not but that’s okay.” She sniffs, chokes a little bit on her breaths. 

“I’m glad -”

“‘m not making - any d-decisions. Not now. G-onna wa-ait ‘till ‘m less - ‘till I feel better to - to to decide.”

(But by the end of the night she has a name: Ella. And by the end of the week she determines she will go to Joel to ask for the last name. Tess never was one to mince words.)

(But by the end of that hour, she is sleeping, in bed, still curled around the bundle at her side, and the baby who will be called Ella Jean Miller has one full, tiny hand wrapped round her mama’s index finger.)

 

\------

 

There is a knock at his door -  _ I’m comin’ _ , he grunts, though whoever it is certainly won’t be able to hear him. He leaves the two empty bottles sitting on an overturned crate next to the bed. Maybe she’s finally come back; maybe she’ll give him that shirt she took along with her. Tess left a lot of things missing when she left; took a lot with her. 

(He never knows, later, how exactly he knew it was her.)

He fumbles with the deadbolt for a moment; they put that one on together. A salvaged door with a rusted lock, but it does just fine for keeping people out who he doesn’t want in. He rubs the back of his neck, tries to shake the sleep from his eyes, and the door creaks open.

“Well -” he begins, but whatever he had planned to say drops off the map of his brain. It is Tess; just as he knew, somehow, deep from the recesses of his mind some kind of reflex or instinct that knew it would be her, but he did not predict the small bundle in her arms, which upon first glance appears to be his shirt that she took wrapped artfully, the sleeves tied in a snug loop, but from the bundle peers a tiny face.

“Can I come in?” she asks him, her voice rough, never one to mince words. 

He doesn’t say anything, merely lets his mouth gape open, and closes it then thinking he must look like a fish gasping for air. He  _ does  _ feel like gasping for air, suddenly. His mind races -  _ but she’s not some one-night stand, not some girl you don’t know, not even a girlfriend -  _ she’s  _ Tess _ , and he’s known her seven years and nine months already and they are partners and there is a  _ baby  _ in her arms. A baby that looks relatively new - not more than a month old, so, so tiny, and the baby is wrapped in his shirt.

It looks like it enjoys the flannel. He or she is certainly enjoying chewing gently on one of the sleeves. 

Tess sinks onto the couch, keeps the baby gathered close to her, protective and instinctual. He notes the way her arms curve, cradle; the gentle splay of her thin, elegant fingers across the bundle. The way her eyes flash. She is the same Tess; but it feels almost disingenuous to see her sitting there with such a tiny thing, a baby, a mother. (He doesn’t mention that to her; Joel likes his limbs and would like to keep them.)

He sits down next to her. Time seems to mean nothing here. He watches the little baby, the tiny fingers, the soft, cooing sounds that issue and the small round cheeks. Blinking green eyes that stare up at him inquisitively, the slight tilt of the head. The baby has his nose. Tess’ eyes, of course. 

He never, ever asks her if it is his. Of course the baby is his.

Only a child of his would be that at home in soft green plaid.

They do not speak; they simply sit, on the couch, bathed in the soft white light of the afternoon, no sound but for the occasional shutting of a door downstairs. The baby begins to fuss, squirm in the bundle and whimper, and he hears Tess softer than he ever has before. She hushes gently,  _ sh-sh _ , she says,  _ c’mere, little girl,  _ the baby is a girl. Tess’ fingertips so gentle as she smooths the baby‘s soft, thin hair, a chestnutty color, unbuttons her shirt deftly and holds the baby to her breast. He watches; the baby girl’s eyes close and he hears the tiniest of sighs as she nurses from her mama, little hand peeking up from the bundle to curl trustingly against Tess’ pale ivory skin dotted and mapped in constellation freckles. Places he has kissed; the small, curled fingers against places he has kissed. His heart is in his throat. 

Eventually the baby decides she is finished nursing; she hiccups, a little milk on her lips, and Tess uses the corner of her shirt to wipe gently at the soft cheeks. She coos a little more, hushes, rebuttons her shirt with one hand and draws her knees up to hold the baby in a little cradle. Joel watches as the bright green eyes close contentedly, and with another little sigh, Tess’ daughter, his daughter, their daughter is asleep. 

“What’s her name?” he croaks. 

Tess doesn’t meet his eyes. 

“Ella,” she whispers. “Doesn’t - doesn’t have a middle name yet.”

“She got a last name, though, doesn’t she?” he prompts, his voice low and soft so as not to wake Ella, and Tess’ eyes flicker to his finally, their gazes locked. Her eyes are shining with thick, unspilled tears, and when she speaks her voice is hoarse. 

“Does she?” she asks him, and her voice wobbles cut with pain and  _ shame _ , with the deepest tenderness and the most crippling fear of rejection he has ever known. “W-wasn’t sure if she’d get - she’s gonna be Leroux or Miller.”

“Well, she’s both,” he replies, and they speak so quietly. “But, y’know, might be just me, but I like the ring Ella Miller’s got to it.”

“Must be that double ‘l’,” she chokes. “Gotta give her a middle name, though.”

“Could name her after her mama, give her a pretty middle name like Tessa.” He draws closer to them, moves so that they’re just a little bit closer. Tess looks down at the sleeping baby.

“Nah.” Her voice is a little sharper, the same old Tess. “She wouldn’t want that. You pick. Got any good Southern belle names in you, Tex?” She stumbles achingly over the words, thick and slow and functioning mainly as a flimsy dam. 

“Mae?” he offers. “Jean? Those are the only ones I got right now. What d’you think? Ella Mae? Ella Jean?”

“ -- like Ella Jean better,” she breathes, as controlled as can be. 

“Ella Jean it is.” He nods, approving, watches as their daughter stirs slightly and mumbles a little tiny baby noise in her sleep. “Ella Jean Miller. Ellie, for short. You like that one?”

“ -- like tha-” she gets that far before she buries her face in his neck, and he feels her hot tears spilling into the scruff and stubble there (shit, he can’t shave without cutting himself when she’s not there to do it for him), her shoulders shaking, and she makes no sounds. He cannot see, but her lips are parted slightly, a silent scream of built-up agony, louder than any sound in the world, and he hushes her gently. Lets his hand stroke through her hair, which has grown longer than he’s seen it yet, down past her shoulders and a deep brown tinted with auburn red. 

_ Tess,  _ he says,  _ Tessa, I like Ella Jean plenty but no child would ever be ashamed to have your name.  _

_ Fuckin’ biased as h-ell _ , she bawls into his shoulder, kissing there almost frantically.

_ Now don’t go swearin’ ‘round the baby _ , he teases her, through the tears he is  _ not  _ crying, his eyes are watering from the - bright light, and she laughs, muffled, and cries harder. 

(Their eyes are red but she sets Ellie to lie on his chest, says,  _ hey, baby girl, this is your daddy, hmm?  _ coos to her,  _ and he’s never gonna let anythin’ happen to you, hmm, he’ll do some pretty crazy things for you, your daddy, he loves you so much. _ )

**Author's Note:**

> on a personal note, I don't use Annabelle as her middle name. Tess in all of my writing has the full name Tessa Marian Laroux, but for the sake of relativity, I swapped it out to Annabelle, because goddamn it I'm ALLOWED, okAY


End file.
